Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T18:45:04.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Designs on the City: John Gwynn's Plans for Georgian London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Miles Ogborn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1: Transforming Metropolitan London, 1750–1960 , January 2004 , pp. 15 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Gwynn, John, London and Westminster Improved, Illustrated by Plans (London, 1766)Google Scholar.

2 Summerson, John, Georgian London (London, 1991), p. 121 Google Scholar; and Olsen, Donald J., Town Planning in London: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London, 1982)Google Scholar.

3 Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Nicholson-Smith, Donald (Oxford, 1991), p. 39 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp. 364, 370.

5 Ogborn, Miles, “This Is London! How D'ye Like It?” Journal of Urban History 27 (2001): 206–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Brewer, John, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1997)Google Scholar.

7 See the discussion in Ogborn, Miles and Withers, Charles W. J., “Introduction: Georgian Geographies?” in their Georgian Geographies: Essays on Space, Place and Landscape in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester, 2004)Google Scholar.

8 Brewer, Pleasures of the Imagination.

9 Ogborn, Miles, Spaces of Modernity: London's Geographies, 1680–1780 (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

10 McKellar, Elizabeth, The Birth of Modern London: The Development and Design of the City (Manchester, 1999), pp. 104, 221Google Scholar. See also Summerson, Georgian London; Clarke, Linda, Building Capitalism: Historical Change and the Labour Process in the Construction of the Built Environment (London, 1992)Google Scholar.

11 Pears, Iain, The Discovery of Painting: The Growth of Interest in the Arts in England, 1680–1768 (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Solkin, David H., Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1993)Google Scholar.

12 Copley, Stephen, “The Fine Arts in Eighteenth-Century Polite Culture,” in Painting and the Politics of Culture: New Essays on British Art, 1700–1850, ed. Barrell, John (Oxford, 1992), pp. 13–37, p. 13Google Scholar.

13 Klein, Lawrence, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brewer, Pleasures of the Imagination.

14 Brewer, John, “‘The Most Polite Age and the Most Vicious’: Attitudes towards Culture as a Commodity, 1660–1800,” in The Consumption of Culture, 1600–1800, ed. Bermingham, Ann and Brewer, John (London, 1995), pp. 341–61Google Scholar; Sekora, John, Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought, Eden to Smollett (Baltimore, 1977)Google Scholar.

15 Colvin, H. M., A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660–1840 (London, 1954), pp. 254–56Google Scholar.

16 Hill, George Birkbeck, ed., Boswell's Life of Johnson, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1934), 2:439 Google Scholar; Chambers, John, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire (Worcester, 1820), p. 504 Google Scholar.

17 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. v.

18 Ibid., Plate II.

19 Summerson, Georgian London.

20 Ogborn, Spaces of Modernity, chap. 3; McCullough, Niall, ed., A Vision of the City: Dublin and the Wide Streets Commissioners (Dublin, 1991)Google Scholar; Borsay, Peter, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town, 1660–1770 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Stillman, Damie, English Neo-Classical Architecture (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

21 Gascoigne, John, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and Polite Culture (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar.

22 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. viii.

23 Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal 35, no. 2 (July–December 1766): 201 Google ScholarPubMed.

24 Corfield, Penelope J., “Class by Name and Number in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” History 72 (1987): 38–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. 15.

26 Ibid., pp. 88–89.

27 Gwynn, John, An Essay on Design: Including Proposals for Erecting a Public Academy to be Supported by Voluntary Subscription (till a Royal Foundation Can Be Obtain'd) for Educating the British Youth in Drawing, and the Several Arts Depending Thereon (London, 1749)Google Scholar.

28 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. 22.

29 Ibid., p. 31.

30 Gwynn, Essay on Design, p. ii and sig. A2r.

31 Ibid., p. 92.

32 Ibid., p. 17.

33 Ibid., pp. 19, 21, iii.

34 Bermingham, Ann, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art (New Haven, Conn., 2000), p. 92 Google Scholar; Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Shaftesbury, Lord, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (London, 1711)Google Scholar.

35 Bermingham, Learning to Draw, pp. 92, 78.

36 Gwynn, Essay on Design, p. 33.

37 Ibid., pp. 26, 21.

38 Ibid., p. 31.

39 A Plan of the City of London after the Great Fire in the Year of Our Lord 1666, with a Model of the New City, according to the Grand Design of Sir Christopher Wren Kt. (London, 1749)Google Scholar.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, pp. vi, 4.

43 See Reddaway, Thomas F., The Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (London, 1940)Google Scholar; Wall, Cynthia, The Literary and Cultural Spaces of Restoration London (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar.

44 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. vi.

45 Ibid., pp. v, 5, 7.

46 Ibid., p. ix.

47 Stallybrass, Peter and White, Allon, The Poetics and Politics of Transgression (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Ogborn, Miles, “This Most Lawless Space: The Geography of the Fleet and the Making of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753,” New Formations 37 (1999): 11–32 Google Scholar; [Defoe, Daniel], The Anatomy of Exchange Alley (London, 1719)Google Scholar.

48 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. 5.

49 Ibid., p. xv.

50 Ibid., p. vii.

51 Carter, Philip, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society: Britain, 1660–1800 (Harlow, 2001)Google Scholar.

52 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. vi.

53 Ibid., p. 5.

54 The same point is made in [Stuart, James], Critical Observations on the Buildings and Improvements of London (London, 1771), pp. 23–29 Google Scholar.

55 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, p. 61.

56 Ibid., p. 1.

57 Conlin, Jonathan, “‘At the Expense of the Public’: The Sign Painters' Exhibition of 1762 and the Public Sphere,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 36 (2002): 1–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Grieg, James, ed., The Farington Diary (London, 1922), p. 180 Google Scholar.

59 Gwynn (London and Westminster Improved, p. 67) also complained of “mere mechanical architects, totally ignorant in any branch of learning proper to lead them into the knowledge of design.”

60 Jenkins, Frank, Architect and Patron: A Survey of Professional Relations and Practice in England from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Crinson, Mark and Lubbock, Jules, Architecture: Art or Profession? Three Hundred Years of Architectural Education in Britain (Manchester, 1994)Google Scholar. On carpenters, see Ayres, James, Building the Georgian City (New Haven, Conn., 1998)Google Scholar.

61 Campbell, Robert, The London Tradesman (London, 1747), pp. 157–58Google Scholar.

62 [Gwynn, John], An Essay on Harmony, as It Relates Chiefly to Situation and Building (London, 1739)Google Scholar.

63 On Whiggish Palladianism, see Porter, Roy, “The Urban and the Rustic in Enlightenment London,” in Nature and Society in Historical Context, ed. Teich, Mikuláš, Porter, Roy, and Gustafson, Bo (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 176–94Google Scholar. On the rococo, see Girouard, Mark, “Coffee at Slaughter's: English Art and the Rococo—I,” Country Life 139 (13 January 1966): 58–61 Google Scholar, “Hogarth and His Friends: English Art and the Rococo—II,” Country Life 139 (27 January 1966): 188–90Google Scholar, and “The Two Worlds of St. Martin's Lane: English Art and the Rococo—III,” Country Life 139 (3 February 1966): 224–27Google Scholar.

64 Williams, Basil, The Whig Supremacy, 1714–1760 (Oxford, 1939)Google Scholar; Solkin, Painting for Money.

65 George II is quoted as saying, “I hate bainting and boetry too! Neither one nor the other ever did any good!” See Nichols, R. H. and Wray, F. A., The History of the Foundling Hospital (London, 1935), p. 259 Google Scholar. See also Whitley, William T., Artists and Their Friends in England, 1700–1799 (London, 1928)Google Scholar, for a discussion of Vertue's meetings with the prince of Wales.

66 See Kirby, Joshua, Dr. Brook Taylor's Method of Perspective Made Easy, Both in Theory and Practice (Ipswich, 1755)Google Scholar, whose list of subscribers identifies members of the academy; Girouard, “Hogarth and His Friends,” p. 190.

67 Gandon, James, ed., The Life of James Gandon (Dublin, 1846), p. 163 Google Scholar.

68 The story is disputed by Harris, John, Sir William Chambers: Knight of the Polar Star (London, 1970)Google Scholar. Gwynn's well-known ambivalence about the benefits of Continental travel to architectural learning should also be noted here; see his London and Westminster Improved, p. 65.

69 The Plan of an Academy for the Better Cultivation, Improvement and Encouragement of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and the Arts of Design in General (London, 1755)Google Scholar; Cust, Lionel and Colvin, Sidney, History of the Society of Dilettanti (London, 1898)Google Scholar.

70 Pears, The Discovery of Painting; Solkin, Painting for Money.

71 Publicus, , Observations on Bridge Building, and the Several Plans Offered for a New Bridge (London, 1760), pp. 21–22 Google Scholar.

72 Pears, The Discovery of Painting; Solkin, Painting for Money.

73 “The Papers of the Society of Artists of Great Britain,” Walpole Society 6 (1917–18): 113–30Google Scholar, entry for 14 November 1760 (p. 121); Graves, Algernon, The Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1760–1791: The Free Society of Artists, 1761–1783 (London, 1907)Google Scholar.

74 [Gwynn, John and Johnson, Samuel], Thoughts on the Coronation of His Present Majesty King George the Third (London, 1761)Google Scholar.

75 Folkenflik, Robert, “Samuel Johnson and Art,” in Samuel Johnson: Pictures and Words, ed. Alkon, Paul and Folkenflik, Robert (Los Angeles, 1984), pp. 63–118 Google Scholar; A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints &c. Exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain; at the Great Room, in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross … 1762 (London, 1762)Google Scholar.

76 [Gwynn and Johnson], Thoughts on the Coronation, p. 4.

77 An Account of the Ceremonies Observed at the Coronation of Our Most Gracious Sovereign George III and His Royal Consort Queen Charlotte, on Tuesday the 22d of September 1761 (London, 1761)Google Scholar. On Gwynn's involvement in the birthday celebrations, see “Papers of the Society of Artists,” p. 126.

78 Linda Colley, “The Apotheosis of George III: Loyalty, Royalty and the British Nation, 1760–1820,” Past and Present, no. 102 (1984): 94–129.

79 Solkin, Painting for Money.

80 Graves, The Society of Artists.

81 See the contrasting accounts in Edwards, Edward, Anecdotes of Painters Who Have Resided or Been Born in England (London, 1808)Google Scholar, and Pye, John, Patronage of British Art: An Historical Sketch (London, 1845)Google Scholar. For contemporary complaints, see The Conduct of the Royal Academicians, While Members of the Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain, viz., from the Year 1760, to their Expulsion in the Year 1769 (London, 1771)Google Scholar; Strange, Robert, An Inquiry into the Rise and Establishment of the Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1775)Google Scholar.

82 Savage, Nicholas, “The ‘Viceroy’ of the Academy: Sir William Chambers and the Royal Protection of the Arts,” in Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III, ed. Harris, John and Snodin, Michael (New Haven, Conn., 1996), pp. 193–98Google Scholar.

83 Brewer, Pleasures of the Imagination.

84 Uglow, Jenny, Hogarth: A Life and a World (London, 1997), p. 672 Google Scholar; Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth, vol. 3, Art and Politics, 1750–1764 (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar.

85 Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved, pp. 2, xiii.

86 Lancaster, Nathaniel, The Plan of an Essay upon Delicacy (London, 1748)Google Scholar, endeavors to define “the true character of DELICACY” (p. 70), hedged around as it is with the dangers of “effeminacy” (p. 70) and “estrangement from human commerce” (p. 73). See also Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society.

87 Shawe-Taylor, Desmond, The Georgians: Eighteenth-Century Portraiture and Society (London, 1990)Google Scholar; Pointon, Marcia, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Baker, Malcolm, “Portrait Busts of Architects in Eighteenth-Century England,” in New Light on English Palladianism, ed. Hind, Charles (London, 1990), pp. 14–30 Google Scholar; and Jordanova, Ludmilla, “Medical Men, 1780–1820,” in Portraiture: Facing the Subject, ed. Woodall, Joanna (Manchester, 1997), pp. 101–15Google Scholar.

88 Compare, e.g., Gwynn's portrait with the direct gaze of Francis Price, the author of The British Carpenter (London, 1735)Google ScholarPubMed, in George Beare's 1747 portrait now in the National Portrait Gallery in London, or with the many representations of William Chambers.

89 Summerson, Georgian London, p. 122; Stillman, English Neo-Classical Architecture.

90 See the essays by David Gilbert and Frank Mort in this issue.

91 Harris, Sir William Chambers, and Stillman, English Neo-Classical Architecture.

92 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p. 364.